Friday, February 27, 2015

Review: the Moon as 'blue water port' to the stars

"Crotts' new book, titled The New Moon: Water, Exploration, and Future Habitation, explores his innovative ideas and many more in meticulous detail, providing hard scientific findings that topple decades-old ideas about the moon's development and structure. Readers may well wonder why the U.S. abandoned its lunar exploration program in 2010, just as so many discoveries were emerging.

"Today, we know that billions of tons of water exist on the moon in the form of ice, and Crotts is sure that more will be found. It's not likely the kind of H2O earthlings drink but rather one rich in heavy water—or deuterium oxide—a form of water in which the hydrogen atom's nucleus is double the mass of ordinary hydrogen, rendering it undrinkable by humans without processing.

"Crotts believes the moon's water could be broken down into liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, a potent mix that makes an ultra-efficient form of rocket fuel, the same kind that powered the NASA Saturn V rockets that boosted the Apollo spaceships out of Earth's atmosphere towards the moon.

"You'd have to look hard to find another propellant that's as efficient or better," said Crotts. The moon also has carbon monoxide that Crotts said could be converted with water into methane, another efficient and powerful rocket fuel.

"With all that potential rocket fuel, Crotts naturally believes that the moon could one day be transformed into an interplanetary gas station for the satellites and rockets that today get discarded because they eventually run out of fuel and drift into the wrong orbit."